Iñaki Godoy can "do One Piece for many years and...be happy"

Last August, Netflix debuted its live-action adaptation of One Piece, the tremendously popular manga series by Eiichiro Oda. Hollywood in general and Netflix in particular has a long history of trying and failing to get a live-action anime remake off the ground (you could argue that they're still struggling), but somehow One Piece broke though. The show found an audience with fans new and old, and Netflix renewed it for another season.

Part of that success surely has to do with lead actor Iñaki Godoy, who plays the irrepressibly cheerful pirate captain Monkey D. Luffy. Again, it's a miracle that Netflix found someone as perfect as Godoy to play Luffy, who is an extremely cartoonish, exaggerated character. How do you translate his boundless enthusiasm to live-action without it looking ridiculous? Godoy still feels like a one-in-a-million find. Just ask Eiichiro Oda himself: “I thought the biggest challenge was going to be finding somebody to play Luffy. I didn’t expect to find anyone quite like Iñaki Godoy,” the artist toldThe New York Times last August. “When I first created Luffy, I drew the most energetic child I could imagine: a normal child on the outside, but not at all normal on the inside. Iñaki was just like the person I drew; he felt absolutely natural.”

Of course, Godoy's skill didn't come out of nowhere. The 20-year-old had been working as a child actor in his native Mexico for years, so he had experience to draw on when he learned he would be taking on this iconic role. “I knew a lot of people had expectations of it and I was excited. I was also very nervous," Goday told Teen Vogue. "It was a big responsibility, but I still don’t think I’ve processed how big it actually is. I am just an actor, man. I just go do my job. It’s something that I’ve been doing for many years, and the same effort I put into Luffy, I put into every other character that I play.”

"I had to understand that I’m playing a character who is unlike anything I’ve ever played, someone who is extraordinary, someone who has a capability of making people follow him anywhere he goes, someone who follows his dreams, who trusts his gut, and who doesn’t care what others think. The moving thing about Luffy is that he doesn’t really change too much. Instead, he changes the world around him with his way of being."

Godoy threw himself into the role, preparing by not only reading the manga and watching the anime adaptation but by embarking on an 80-day adventure at sea where he learned to tie knots, read compasses and clean some of the “most horrendous” items you can think of using ocean water.“I can say that I am not afraid of cleaning anything now. I know that for a fact," he joked. "I had to go in those bilges, man, and I had to really scrub.”

That kind of I'll-try-anything attitude is definitely a good fit for Luffy, who is beloved by audiences around the world. That's a responsibility that Godoy takes seriously, and approaches with typical fearlessness. “I understand that Luffy andOne Piece and my work mean something to people and I respect that and I take care of the people that love what we do,” he said. [T]here is a responsibility, but they chose me because they know I can handle it and I know I can handle it.”

"I think I still have a lot of work that I want to do, not just with One Piece, but as an actor. I want to earn my place in the history of performing arts. I really want to earn my spot in people’s hearts."

He'll have lots of chances to do that as the show goes on. The One Piece manga has been running since 1997, with over 1000 chapters published to date. The first season of the anime adapted the first 90 chapters. “I can do One Piece for many years and I can be happy, and I don’t need to do a million things,” Godoy said. That's good, because he's in for a long road.

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